Galvanize
by VictoryCrush
Summary: Basically, Castiel is injured and tired and angry. And Dean is basically awesome. Tag to 8x23. Spoilers. No warnings.


**GALVANIZE**

**by Victorycrush**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. Yet.**

* * *

Here is what Castiel knows:

His right arm, where the radius and ulna cross, is broken.

The lights in the atmosphere are not stars.

He cannot open his wings.

**OoOoOoOoO**

Dean Winchester's voice crosses the darkness and steals into his ear; it is a deep, rough bellow and it is shaped like Castiel's name, and coloured with fear.

He follows it dutifully to the small road by the small church by the estuary. In a hailstorm of burning angels, Dean and Sam crouch by the armoured Impala. Bodies are hitting the water. Castiel thinks the sound is like canon fire, or a series of small mortars. He has seen humans killed like that- limbs ripped off by the strength of soft seas.

"_CAS!"_

Dean has found him in the chaos. His eyes dig into Castiel, but his hands are sunk into the arms of his brother.

"Dean," Castiel says.

It seems like a good a place to start, until Sam's head hits the car and he begins to scream. More lights, like tempestuous lanterns, glowing in the skyline and in the bulging veins of Sam Winchester's arms, in the cords of his neck and the frantic drumming of his heart. Sam Winchester is falling.

"Help me get him in the car!" Dean barks, already leaning Sam against him, already preparing to stand with or without Castiel's assistance. He jogs to them. His arm sends out strange pulses, and begins to feel oddly warm. He opens the car door for them. Dean lays Sam in the back seat, slapping his knee, muttering something that Castiel should be able to hear clearly- a prayer. Then the door is closing and Dean is sliding into the front seat, key in the ignition, and Castiel, feeling a strange jump in his stomach, opens the other door and sits shotgun.

Dean's eyes are rage and heartbreak and filled with the light of falling angels.

"Tell me you didn't do this," he demands. His hand hovers, between the key and his gun.

For once, "I didn't do this."

"_Swear it."_ Because Dean may be a killer, but he's a righteous one.

_"_I swear."

The key turns. The engine roars. The Impala wheels around, like a ship on a sea, and Castiel finds himself rolling into a rhythmic blackness.

**OoOoOoOoO**

He is floating in water with the grey fins of hammerheads and the forms of his ex-limbs. Two strong arms bob on the ocean. Two legs, two wet, black folded wings, and a face that is entirely inhuman. When he opens his mouth to breathe, sea brine fills it and chokes him, and he sinks enough to see the hungry, black eyes that are swarming him.

**OoOoOoOoO**

Three things Castiels remembers:

He has never been in the ocean.

He has never drowned.

He has only dreamed once before this, and that was about Lucifer wearing Sam Winchester to a high school promenade.

**OoOoOoOoO**

A sound opens his eyes. He sees the prophet Kevin, wincing and freezing with his arms up and his legs crouched, before he remembers what the sound was.

A metal tray is on the ground. Milk and round o's of ground oats spill over the grey cement floor. An orange rolls into the corner.

_Bang, _Castiel remembers, and closes his eyes.

**OoOoOoOoO**

When he can, he wanders from his room and explores the underground bunker in search of Dean.

His legs are stiff, as if they're trying to remember how to move, his broken arm covered in a heavy plaster up to the elbow. Occasionally, the muscles in his body start to make little jumping motions under his skin, forming bumps as his hair stands on end. His overcoat is missing. And his tie. The loss makes him sullen.

Dean is in the kitchen- a large room with stone counters and black-and-white tile floors. The 1930's-style stove-top crackles with the smell of greasy pork.

Castiel's stomach rumbles loudly. Enough to alert a hunter's ears.

"Finally, you're up," Dean greets. "Stomach talking?"

"No," Castiel says. "Stomachs can't speak. It's just borborygmi."

"Bless you."

Castiel can appreciate the irony. "How is Sam?"

"Not good."

The stove is flicked off and the bacon slides onto a plate. Dean brings it to the island counter-top and turns away while Castiel picks at it. It burns his fingers, but the weakness for red meat isn't just Jimmy Novak's any more. If Jimmy Novak exists any more.

"Did you stop him from completing the third trial?"

"Yeah. Lot of good that did him," Dean says. "His nuke arms aren't doing that glowy-thing any more, but he sure isn't better for it."

Castiel stuffs a few strips of bacon into his mouth and inhales them. "The first two trials wrought impossible damage to his body on a subatomic-"

"-Subatomic level. Yeah, Cas. I know. There's gotta be a way to reverse it, transfer it, _something."_

"There's really only one person who'd know," Castiel points out.

Dean's expression darkens. For a moment, Purgatory seems like a fond memory.

"When I get my hands on Metatron, I'm gonna rip that gummy smirk off of his face and feed it to him through a straw."

"Or we could just kill him," Castiel suggests, licking his fingers. He stares at the plate, then starts wiping the leftover grease off with his thumb until a hand enters his vision and pulls it away. "I wasn't finished."

Instead of arguing, Dean sets a loaf of bread and a half-eaten jar of peanut butter in front of him. Castiel sadly fiddles with the twist-tie, one-handed.

"How about this?" Dean asks, gesturing vaguely at Castiel's person. "You didn't complete the trials, either? Or did you?"

"They weren't trials; they were a spell."

"A spell for what?"

This earns Dean a look. "Uh, I don't know, maybe for _the legions of angels plummeting to earth?"_

"Someone got up on the wrong side of the cloud," Dean mutters.

"I should have realized Metatron's intentions," Castiel continues. "As angels go, he was more bitter than Lucifer."

"Hey, I wasn't exactly doing a background check. The guy wrote the tablets, who'da thought he'd been plotting some super-secret scheme?"

"But _I _should have known."

Dean watches Castiel struggle with the packaging for another moment, then takes over. "All right, already. You're worse than Sam."

"Sam has two working arms."

"Sam doesn't have much working _anything _right now," Dean retorts. He opens the bread, pulls out a few slices and a blunt knife, and begins to slather them with peanut butter. "So no trials. And the final ingredient of Metatron's Recipe for Disaster was...?"

Castiel wishes peanut butter didn't make it so hard to breathe. He forcibly swallows and puts down the bread before the food in his stomach decides to reverse its course.

"It's you, isn't it?" Dean says, almost triumphant. "Your mojo sealed the deal?"

"It's called grace," Castiel snaps, before he can stop himself. "And yes, that appears to have _sealed the deal. _So now all of Heaven- _my home-_ is in shambles because of my naivety, the angels have all been cast down to earth because of my stupidity, and I can't even open a bag of bread without assistance."

He pauses, reaching up and swiping at his eyes. "Wha- What's wrong with me?"

"You're crying," Dean says. All energy is washed from his voice. "It's called crying, Cas."

"I know what crying is," Castiel retorts. He wipes at his eyes, disgruntled to find that new tears continue to form. "I don't like it."

"No one likes it."

"Dean, how do I stop it?"

"I dunno. Think happy thoughts or- _Cas. _Don't use your sleeve."

"This is weirdest thing ever."

Dean smiles.

"It's not funny, Dean," Castiel complains, scrubbing at his tear ducts with his knuckles, and almost immediately, Dean's features smooth into overly-rigid solemnity.

"All right, Weeping Angel. Let's see if your favorite shows are on, huh? Spanish soaps all day long."

Castiel hates Spanish soaps and Dean knows it, but the thought of a couch and a running television pleases him. He sniffs. "And burgers?"

"You know it."

**OoOoOoOoO**

Here _is_ what Castiel knows:

His arm is broken and his stomach is growling painfully. He is weak and he is tired and his ankles keep locking. The rooms are too cold and the light is too bright.

But it's got to be some kind of miracle that he's still with friends.

* * *

**Hey everyone! This is my first story for Supernatural, but I've been watching the show since the fourth season. Man, has it been a ride!**

**I know this will be obsolete by the time the ninth season airs this fall, but I just HAD to get it out of my system. **

**Thanks for reading, and please let me know whatcha think~ I really appreciate the feedback (esp. you, Shining Sunny, for pointing out that glaringly obvious anatomy boo-boo that I posted at four in the morning).**

**Hope you're having a great summer!**

**-VICTORYCRUSH**


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